The present invention relates to electrically driven self-propelled trucks and an apparatus for changing the course thereof for use, for example, in motor vehicle production lines or the like.
For example in production lines for motor vehicles or household electric appliances, various parts are attached to intermediate products or like articles as loaded on electrically driven self-propelled trucks.
However, the article to be transported is placed in a fixed position on the conventional truck, so that the part to be provided on a lower portion of the article must be attached by the worker in a lowered posture, hence extreme difficulty. Further since parts are usually attached to the article by the person working on the floor around the truck, the article is not readily accessible. This results in the problem of a low work efficiency.
Further at a location where the course of the self-propelled truck is to be changed, a gradually curved guide rail is conventionally installed to change the direction of the guide rail itself, and the truck is driven along the curved rail for the change of its course. This entails the problem that the factory requires a wide space for the installation of the guide rail.
Further to assure convenient part attaching work, there arises a need to change the orientation of the truck itself, therefore the orientation of the article as placed on the truck without changing the direction of advance of the truck. To meet the need, the truck itself is provided with means for changing the orientation of the truck in its entirety or for changing only the orientation of the article on the truck. Nevertheless, this leads to the problem that the truck becomes complex in construction and costly to make, consequently increasing the equipment cost of the conveyor system in the production line.